More than 500 Marian shrines of miraculous origin dot the country of France

“Taking the Most Holy and Glorious Virgin Mary as special protectress of Our Kingdom, we consecrate to her Our person, Our State, Our Crown and Our subjects”: with this solemn vow made in 1638 (excerpt), Louis XIII consecrated the kingdom to the Virgin Mary, declaring the feast of Mary in her Assumption to be France's national feast day, and asking that August 15 be solemnly celebrated in every parish in the kingdom.

“Regnum Galliae, regnum Mariae: the kingdom of France is the kingdom of Mary”, Pope Urban II (1088-1099) famously declared. The apparitions at Ile-Bouchard, Boulogne, Pontmain, and many more in France's history confirm this old adage.

After two centuries of revolutionary disorientation, Catholics in France, including the most fervent, “don't know where they live anymore”! French researcher Stanislas-Xavier Guerbet has compiled a map of Marian shrines, apparition sites, abbeys and other holy places linked to the Virgin Mary in France and Belgium.  He notes: 

“Most of us are unaware of the wealth bequeathed to us by our forebears just a stone's throw from where we live, and especially around the 500 miraculous Virgins that line our territory: 500 ‘little Lourdes’ in which our Heavenly Mother has showered us since her day and for 2,000 years, long before Lourdes (1858) and the invention of the railroad with the millions of patients transported there since.”

Adapted from: www.catholiquedefrance.fr